Ethical Fragments E-Book

Hierocles

• Herausgeber: Enhanced Media Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

2nd century Greek Stoic philosopher Hierocles was famous for his Elements of Ethics, a book which was thought to be lost until part of it was discovered in a papyrus fragment at Hermopolis in 1901. These fragments and others have been collected, translated and revised in E thical Fragments, the most complete collection of Hierocles available in print.

Leseprobe

Ethical Fragments

By Hierocles

Translated by Thomas Taylor

Table of Contents

Title Page

Ethical Fragments

Fragment I | How We Ought to Conduct Ourselves Towards the Gods

Fragment II | How We Ought to Conduct Ourselves Towards Our Country

Fragment III | After What Manner We Ought To Conduct Ourselves Towards Our Parents

Fragment IV | On Fraternal Love

Fragment V | On Wedlock

Fragment VI | How We Ought to Conduct Ourselves Towards Our Kindred

Fragment VII | On Economics

Musonius Rufus: The Roman Socrates

Further Reading: Plato Six Pack – Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, The Allegory of the Cave and Symposium

Ethical Fragments by Hierocles. Translated by Thomas Taylor. First published in 1822. This edition published by Enhanced Media 2017. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-365-74337-5

Fragment I

How We Ought to Conduct Ourselves Towards the Gods

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SUCH particulars, also, as the following, are to be previously assumed concerning the Gods, viz. that they are immutable, and firm in their decrees; so that they never change the conception of what appeared to them to be fit from the beginning. For there is one immutability and firmness of the virtues, which it is reasonable to suppose subsists transcendently with the Gods, and which imparts a never failing stability to their conceptions. From which it is evident, that there is no probability that the punishments which divinity thinks proper to inflict can be remitted. For it is easy to infer, that if the Gods change their decisions, and omit to punish him whom they had designed to punish, the world can neither be beautifully nor justly governed; nor can any probable reason for [the necessity of] repentance be assigned. Poetry also appears to have asserted such things as the following, rashly, and without any reason: “By incense and libation, gentle vows, And sacrifice and prayer, men bend the Gods,

When they transgress, and stray from what is right” and “For flexible are e'en the Gods themselves. And in short whatever of a similar nature is to be found in poetry.”

Nor must we omit to observe, that though the Gods are not the causes of evil, yet they connect certain persons with things of this kind, and surround those who deserve [to be afflicted] with corporeal and external detriments; not through any malignity, or because they think it requisite that men should struggle with difficulties, but for the sake of punishment. For as pestilence and drought, and besides these excessive rain, earthquakes, and everything of this kind, are for the most part produced through certain other more physical causes, yet sometimes are effected by the Gods, when the times are such that the iniquity of the multitude, publicly, and in common, requires to be punished; after the same manner, also, the Gods sometimes afflict an individual with corporeal and external detriments, in order to punish him, and convert others to what is right.

But to be persuaded that the Gods are never the cause of any evil, contributes greatly, as it appears to me, to proper conduct towards the Gods. For evils proceed from vice alone, but the Gods are of themselves the causes of good, and of whatever is advantageous; while, in the meantime, we do not admit their beneficence, but surround ourselves with voluntary evils. Hence, on this occasion, it appears to me that it is well said by the poet: “that mortals blame the Gods, as if they were the causes of their evils! though not from Fate, But for their crimes they suffer pain and woe.”

For that God is never in any way the cause of evil may be proved by many arguments; but at present we shall only adduce what Plato says: "that as it is not the province of what is hot to refrigerate, but the contrary; so neither is it the province of that which is beneficent to be noxious, but the contrary." Moreover, God being good, and immediately replete from the beginning with every virtue, cannot be noxious, or the cause to any one of evil; but on the contrary, must im [...]